So, no drops or bank powers for Premium players?

My account got reactivated today and I decided to try out CoH again to see if it would be worthwhile to return. So far, my first impressions on returning have been rather... poor. Insane rubber-banding lag that laughs at my /sync attempts, my 50s finding themselves functionally useless since both of their builds are filled with IOs, and everything being so in my face about "Give us money!" among other things isn't making things look good. To add to this, I'm finding that I'm the victim of either a bug or a "feature" that seemed to be completely unmentioned.

I was lucky enough that one of the characters I unlocked was a lowbie and only had two IOs rather than being filled with generics like I thought he was, so I did have a playable character without shelling out cash on a sub, IO license, or more unlocks. I played this toon through five paper missions and then a Mayhem mission, which granted the Movement Increase passive power, and found gameplay to be business as normal. When I was done, I decided to go back to the AH to throw my junk at as had been habit in the past. I quickly noticed two things. First, Movement Increase was doing absolutely nothing. Looking at my character's real number attributes, the power wasn't even listed as an effect under the stuff affecting my movement speeds. And second, my inventories were all just as empty as I had started, except for Inspirations which had continued to drop.

So, am I missing something here and Premium players are barred from bank/mayhem mission powers and from salvage recipe drops? Or is this a bug designed to discourage me more from trying to come back to this game despite the bad first impressions I'm having? If this is intended... well, they need to make it clear and I question the logic behind letting me get reward tokens but not recipe or salvage drops (or not let me use anything the merits buy). I'm at Tier 4 rewards, but none of them I can see mention excluding me from salvage and recipe drops or bank powers.

First up, you don't have to go anything too drastic about the IO builds, just use the 2nd or 3rd Build options to recreate your build with SOs (so that you don't "lose" your IO build if you choose to re-sub/pay/unlock through Vet rewards later).

Secondly, Salvage/Recipe drops and AH access don't kick in until the end of T4, I believe (the problem being that it doesn't tell you in the interface *or* on the summary on the Freedom site, which is dumb and needs changing ASAP), so you won't have been getting drops because you wouldn't have been able to do anything with them unless you'd unlocked AH access.

Edit: As per, Paragonwiki has the details: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Paragon_Rewards_Program - I was right, it is the end of T4 that you get AH access.

The returning Premium player experience needs to be looked at before it turns too many people away.

The OP unlocked a character that has both builds occupied by grayed IOs. A third build may not be an option because IIRC third builds require Incarnate access to unlock. As a Premium player he doesn't have that.

So, he spent one of his few unlocks on a character that is unplayable. SOing may not be an option as IO builds tend to have very different slotting from IO builds. He may or may not have the funds available to fully SO the character, and even if he did, that means trashing the IOs that are already in the build. Not a very fun option. Oh, he probably has a freespec so he can respec his build to an SO build but should a returning player be faced with a "mandatory" respec as their first in game activity? Or should they just be able to jump on their favorite character and go have some fun?

Spending another of his few unlocks on a character that just happens to have mostly SOs, he tried a Mayhem mission but got very few rewards. The power I'm not sure about, but I believe Premium players must have Tier 7 completed or buy an IO License to receive Invention Salvage and Recipe drops.

That's a pretty poor experience for a returning player. A returning player should be allowed to go have some fun, not be faced with a series of disappointments. The only thing easier than jumping back into the game for free is leaving it again. We should not let that happen!

With that said, TwilightPhoenix, you chose to do radio missions as your first in game activity. That is about the poorest experience you can get for yourself first time back in the game. I highly recommend you roll a brand new alt and check out the brand new starter zones and missions. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised! The game is much better than it was in the past, but please give it a chance to show you!

WARNING: I bold names.

I also think the disabling of existing IOs is a bit harsh for a returning veteran on premium. It might be better to disable -slotting- IOs instead. A premium would be able to use existing IOs already in their powers, but not be able to slot new ones overtop the existing ones, or slot IOs in new characters. I see this discussed in game a lot too, and it really is putting off some returning vets.

I'm at the end of Tier 4 and have one token towards Tier 5, so I have AH access (and actually found I had some inf waiting for me to pick up still). But if I don't get recipe or salvage drops for not having IOs unlocked, that's fine, I can understand that. Although I could still sell it, I have more than enough inf to supply a couple of servers worth of toons with SOs, so that's not too much of a bother. Though that makes me wonder about the logic of letting me get Reward Merits then. Surely they don't intend for me to spend them on Large Inspirations, assuming those even work since I'm not at Tier 8?

The power in question is a reward for completing Mayhem missions, the one from Independence Port listed here. As far as I know there's no mention that these should be restricted and non-functional for me, so either their failure to work is a bug or the lack of mention is a "bug".

And yeah, I knew radios weren't the best thing to do going in, but I really felt like just blowing stuff up. Although partly due to the lag I was getting (so bad I was rubberbanding in zig-zag patterns when trying to run straight), Mangle ended up doing most of the damage, but it was funny watching him flip out and destroy everything and everyone in a two-block radius whenever we came upon a trash can. I still have some global unlocks left, but if I choose to stay I want to see how much life my server has before using them after the expected tide of free-players comes rushing in. I might transfer and I'll need the unlock slots over there.

Speaking of which, I saw in another topic someone was missing two global unlocks and I think I might be as well. If I remember, before Freedom, everyone had two free unlocks. I then received two more unlocks for twelve month vet and two more for Going Rogue. Shouldn't I have six?

Its funny they call premium accounts that because there is nothing premium about them. They should call them the "somewhat better" accounts because they really aren't much better than a free account unless you are a high tier for Paragon rewards. But that's how it goes with free games. They suck unless you pay for the goodies. This game really isn't worth playing for free unless you are tier 7 or above in my eyes.

And locking out IO's is harsh, but its a way to make you pay for the game. And that is the main goal in the end so the free players will have to deal with it.

I wouldn't mind if they'd pick between heavy retroactive restrictions and ridiculous prices for minute upgrades, but to have both at the same time is just going to:

a. turn away new and returning players without a dime spent

AND

b. result in less revenue from veterans who have most the stuff unlocked already

Yeah... I need to buy over $200 worth of points or be subscribed for 18 more months for a permanent IO license. That's not very encouraging at all.

This is the only forum I can post in, so I can't drop a bug report in the bug report forum. Heck, unless I start a new topic, then I can only post in this topic too. It's kind of silly like that, they really need to either open up a couple of other forums to Premium players or make a forum for Premium players. Otherwise I can see a bunch of off-topic threads being started here because, other than speaking in-game or filing a support ticket, we have nowhere else to go to give feedback. But, either way, I did /bug it and already got the standard "We received your bug report and some issues may be fixed sooner or later depending on how serious they are" response.

I know about the 30-day license, but I'd love to be able to purchase longer lasting ones too. Or just outright buy an early, permanent license. Sure, in the long run that'd be a wasted purchase, but the precedent is already there. I can buy early unlock of Masterminds and Controllers, among other gated content, so why can't I buy an early unlock of IOs?

All that Premium means is you are better off than a purely free account and less than a subscription.

For the returning player it means that some features may be unlocked based entirely on months of subscription.

For returning players their experience depends on when they left and how long they had subscribed before leaving. The "problems" that generate the most caterwauling are:

1. No Incarnate unless you subscribe (Issue 19)
2. No IOs unless you have unlocked Tier 7 (63 months) or pay $2 a month (Issue 9)
3. No consignment store until you are Tier 4 (18 months) or pay $2 a month (Issue 9)
4. No MA rewards until you are Tier 4 (18 months) or pay $5 a month (includes publishing a Tier 6 benefit) (Issue 14)
5. No Masterminds or Controllers until you are Tier 5 (30 months) or pay $15 for each AT (Issue 0)

1. Creating characters in Praetoria unless you pay a one time charge of $15
2. Alignment switching unless you pay a one time charge of $15
3. GR powersets unless you pay a one time charge of $10 for each one.